Water and smartphones aren’t normally a marriage made in heaven; apart from the new Asian waterproofphone invasion we’re waiting for of course. But a single water droplet can turn your crummy phone camera into an instant microscope for absolutely free.

We take clean drinking water for granted, but in the developing world it's a big and expensive problem. Now, scientists are turning to a plant known as the Miracle Tree to create a new way of purifying water.

Some people go to the beach but eschew going into the water because it's "gross". If that's you, then you are a sucker. According to a new US EPA study, playing in the sand more than doubles your chances of getting sick.

It uses the same principle as your Brita filter to purify water, but Black+Blum's Eau Good bottle does it with way more style using a stick of charcoal that's always visible through the bottle's lovely curves.

Motorised surfboards are nothing new, but typically we just see some yutz puttering around a glassy lake on them. Bo-ring. But today, finally, their potential is being realised. Check out braver-than-you big wave guru Garrett McNamara using a WaveJet to tame some giant, unfriendly waves.

We've seen people hovering with waterjet packs before, but this one has style. Rather than just hanging mid-air like a stupid kite, the Flyboard lets you dive in and out of the water like my favorite aquatic mammal.

The European Space Agency' Mars Express spacecraft has discovered "large volumes of water ice" hiding only 65 feet underground the red planet's surface, in the Phlegra Montes mountain range. I could be used by future human explorers.

One of my yet to be fulfilled dreams is to pop open a fire hydrant and dance naked in the street while the exploded hydrant rains all over me. FUN. I'm second guessing myself now though cause exploded fire hydrants are FREAKING POWERFUL. They can even lift cars.

In perhaps history's greatest "I'm not drinking this shit, you drink it" moment, a Japanese member of parliament tried to calm the anxious, angry public by drinking from a Fukushima reactor puddle. Too bad he himself says the stunt's worthless.

In the US, there's a persistent urban legend about pet lizards being flushed down the toilet, which then grow up to become angry, vengeful, sewer-dwelling alligators. This same legend was the inspiration for Eastman and Laird's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The lesson here is that cruelty to lizards is both detrimental to your health, and also incredibly lucrative.